Ohio:
West Virginia:
Category Archives: True Talking Points
Nearly 500,000 federal employees make over $100,000
According to a brand new book already striking fear in the hearts of public sector union bosses, America’s government workers may be the only men and women in the country still blessing their lucky stars for President Obama. Mallory Factor’s Shadowbosses: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind claims that government employees make more money, work less, retire earlier, have greater job security, and have more retirement security than their private sector counterparts. No wonder Washington D.C. is getting rich while the rest of America suffers.
Here’s the bottom line, according to Shadowbosses: government service is now more lucrative than the private sector. Federal government workers reportedly averaged more than twice the salary and benefits of an average private sector worker. Even more unbelievably, there are fully 459,016 federal workers who make over $100,000 in salary – one in five federal workers.
They earn like that because many of them are members of public sector unions. And those unions work hand in glove with politicians – particularly Democratic politicians like Barack Obama – to ensure friendly people on the other side of the bargaining table. The corrupt cycle works like this: Democratic politicians negotiate rich wages and benefits for union members with taxpayer cash; the union members then pay union dues; the unions use that money to re-elect the Democratic politicians. Everybody wins, except the taxpayers.
Obama spokesman admits that secretive bureaucrats will make your “medical decisions” under ObamaCare (video)
This writer said this from the beginning (see my old college blog), so did Sarah Palin, so did Newt Gingrich, and as I recall do did the Legal Insurrection blog.
News Anchor Chris Wallace: “That is the argument that the Obama campaign makes – that the $716 billion is all in cuts to providers and insurance companies and it will have no effect on benefits or services to the beneficiaries. Let me ask my question. Medicare’s own actuary, own actuary of Medicare – not of the Romney campaign – says that is impossible. That you can’t have the same services for $716 billion less. And let’s put up some of what the Medicare actuary says. They say that 15 percent of Medicare providers will be unprofitable by 2019. 25 percent of Medicare providers will be unprofitable by 2030. And the Medicare actuary concludes – this is his quote – in practice Medicare providers could not sustain continued negative margins and, absent legislative changes, would have to withdraw – withdraw – from providing services to Medicare beneficiaries, merge with other provider groups or shift substantial portions of the Medicare costs it to their non-Medicare non-Medicaid providers. In other words, according to the actuary, Medicare patients, millions of them will lose access to Medicare benefits.”
Former Obama Press Sec. Robert Gibbs: “If Medicare companies that are involved in the program continue doing what they are doing, which is inefficient.”
Wallace: “Wait a minute. The actuary says, in practice, Medicare providers could not sustain continuing negative margins.”
Gibbs: “If Medicare providers continue to do what we are doing. Right now, under the old program, Chris, if a senior got readmitted over and over and over to the hospital for the same illness, they got paid every single time the senior got admitted into the hospital. Why not strengthen the benefit by adding preventive health care to it and trying to ensure that the patient gets accountable care and treated before they get that disease.”
Wallace: “If the providers don’t do it, then what happens is, under your plan, this unelected board, 15 bureaucrats come in and they decide what, well, you are laughing at it but that is it. The IPAB.”
Gibbs: “I guess I am laughing at your characterization of it.”
Wallace: “Are they an elected board?”
Gibbs: “They are medical professionals, they are people we trust to make medical decisions.”
Wallace: “Are they elected by anybody? They are an unaccountable unelected board that comes in and will make decisions on what the providers and what hospitals have to do and Congress either has to vote it all up or all down.”
New Romney Ad Hits Obama for Reversing the Clinton/Gingrich Welfare Reforms (video)
New Mitt Romney Ad Hits Obama for Reversing the Clinton/Gingrich Welfare Reforms
Leftist Academics Teaching Military Instruct Army to Quell the “Tea Party”… (video)
Of course it is illegal for the Army to participate in law enforcement, but since when do laws like the Posse Comitatus Act matter to far left oligarchs bent on a radicalized agenda?
In this scenario the TEA Party comes into a town, occupies it without paying for permits, etc, and takes over parts of the town illegally, while ignoring the requests from law enforcement. Now wait a minute, who behaves this way? Oh that’s right, the Obama endorsed Occupy Wall Street movement that has resulted in dozens of rapes, several deaths, arrests measured in the thousands, organized efforts to resist, even with violence – law enforcement, mass vandalism, threats etc. But it is the TEA Party folks who show up with cute signs and flags, and always clean up after themselves that are the problem.
PJTV’s Trifecta and reporter Anthony Martin respond:
Anthony Martin:
A retired U.S. Army colonel who now teaches modern warfare to soldiers at the University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. has co-written an article with a Civil War expert that has ignited a firestorm today among those increasingly concerned about what some say is a distinct anti-civilian tone that has infected much of the military and Homeland Security since 2009.
Retired Col. Kevin Benson and Jennifer Weber, Associate Professor of History at the University of Kansas, co-wrote an article for Small Wars Journal on a 2010 Army report titled, “U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, The Army Operating Concept 2016 – 2028.”
The report describes how the Army will respond to threats “at home and abroad” in the coming two decades and in doing so has made clear that a monumental cultural shift has occurred in the thinking of those at the top levels of military command. This shift has some government watchdogs worried, particularly given that Benson is using the platform provided at Fort Leavenworth to educate military personnel in his vision of the nature of modern warfare in America. According to the vision articulated by Benson, future warfare will be conducted on our own soil. The military will use its full force against our own citizens. The enemy will be average citizens whose values resonate with those articulated by the tea party.
The fictitious scenario used in the Army report as a teaching tool is a future insurrection of “tea party activists” in South Carolina. As the scenario goes, the tea party group stages a takeover of the town of Darlington, S.C. The mayor is placed under house arrest and prevented from exercising his duties. The police chief, the county sheriff, and other law enforcement officials are removed from office and told not to interfere. The city council is dissolved. The governor of the state, who had previously expressed solidarity with tea party goals, does little to address the situation.
A news conference is called by the new town leaders, all tea party activists, who tell the media that due to the failure of central government to address the concerns of the citizens, the Declaration of Independence has been re-imposed and the local government has been declared null and void.
Several items of interest are to be noted in the scenario the Army uses to describe the tea party activists — “right wing,” “extremists,” “insurrectionists,” all of whom are lumped together with militias and organizations that are considered “racist” and “anti-immigration.”
By contrast, those who oppose the tea party are referred to as “mainstream.”
The obvious question that arises is why would this sort of scenario, with its obviously biased and skewed portrayals, be presented as a teaching tool to military personnel? Why would the U.S. military consider the tea party to be “extremist” or “insurrectionist?” And why would the tea party be classified together with groups that are “racist, “anti-immigration,” and “extremist right wing?”
In the numerous tea party rallies that have occurred across the nation no racism was noted by any observer. Speakers included persons of all races and ethnic backgrounds. No sentiment was expressed against legal immigration but outrage was directed toward those break the law and enter the country by illegal means. And the charge that the tea party is extremist right wing is difficult to justify given that the main thrust of the movement is the protest against runaway government spending that has placed the nation on the brink of economic ruin due to its enormous and unsustainable debt.
Yet repeatedly since the election of Barack Obama in 2009, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has referred to the tea party as “potential homegrown terrorists.“
More from Anthony Martin:
…the military under the Obama administration has made sure that the words “Jihad” and “Islamic” are deleted from all official documents concerning very real threats to the safety and security of citizens. The administration went out of its way, for example, to avoid referring to the Fort Hood terrorist as an “Islamic extremist.”
Yet when describing the frightening possibility that a U.S. city could be seized by an insurgency group, its mayor, police chief, and city council removed from office and placed under house arrest, the Army chooses to use the tea party, not an Occupy Wall Street nor a radical Islamist entity, as the insurgency group in the teaching tool.
When former U.S. Rep. Gabriella Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot along with others in the infamous Tucson massacre of 2011, the Obama administration, the mainstream media, and liberal activists were quick to blame the tea party, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Mark Levin for using “hateful rhetoric” that leads unstable persons such as the Tucson shooter to undertake such violent measures.
Yet none of the those mentioned as the sources for the hateful rhetoric have ever called for violence against anyone.
Several who posted comments on the PJTV video stated that they had attended Benson’s workshop and that each time someone would point out the threat posed by groups such as Islamic extremists, or the Occupy movement, workshop leaders would turn their comments around to continue the established scenario that ordinary citizens are the ones who pose the threat due to their hysteria over Islam and liberal insurrectionist groups.
Yet the ones who routinely call for violence against those who steadfastly resist their collectivist plans are the liberals in academia, government, the media, and left wing activist groups.
Time Magazine’s Joe Klein once accused conservatives shortly after the 2008 election that they were guilty of “sedition” and implied that sedition laws should be resurrected so that conservatives who resist the program being implemented by Barack Obama could be rounded up and jailed. Pamela Geller of the blog Atlas Shrugs has received countless death threats for merely reporting the facts on the activities of extremist Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood stated recently that America will be “brought to its knees.” Liberal commentators on various web sites have routinely called for the deaths of conservatives such as Dick Cheney and Michelle Malkin, and when former Fox News commentator Tony Snow was diagnosed with cancer, left wing hysterics stated that they hoped he would die a slow, painful death.
But these examples are only the tip of the iceberg. President Barack Obama stated in 2008 during the presidential campaign, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” Obama’s friend and political ally Bill Ayers called for young people to kill their parents when he launched the very first “occupy” movement in Chicago in 1969. Ayers is also on record as stating that he supports the killing of tens of millions of conservatives unless they agree to be reeducated in his extremist liberal agenda.
Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, have often stated that they have not changed their views at all since the 1960s and wish they had done much more to advance their agenda.
In addition, the Communist-Socialist-Marxist ideology is singularly responsible for the deaths of over 100 million people during the 20th century alone. Stalin murdered at least 20 million Russians. Chairman Mao murdered at least 65 million Chinese. Fidel Castro along with his henchman Che Guevara murdered hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans, a figure that many say is much too low. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge murdered at least 5 million Cambodians and Southeast Asians after the Viet Nam War.
An in-depth study conducted by a University of Texas professor in 1997 for the National Center for Policy Analysis places the figures cited above much higher.
Republican’s list of proposed spending cuts for $2.5 trillion over ten years
This isn’t enough, but it is a good start:
* Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy — $445 million annual savings.
* Save America’s Treasures Program — $25 million annual savings.
* International Fund for Ireland — $17 million annual savings.
* Legal Services Corporation — $420 million annual savings.
* National Endowment for the Arts — $167.5 million annual savings.
* National Endowment for the Humanities — $167.5 million annual savings.
* Hope VI Program — $250 million annual savings.
* Amtrak Subsidies — $1.565 billion annual savings.
* Eliminate duplicating education programs — H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored by Rep. McKeon, eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.
* U.S. Trade Development Agency — $55 million annual savings.
* Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy — $20 million annual savings.
* Cut in half funding for congressional printing and binding — $47 million annual savings.
* John C. Stennis Center Subsidy — $430,000 annual savings.
* Community Development Fund — $4.5 billion annual savings.
* Heritage Area Grants and Statutory Aid — $24 million annual savings.
* Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half — $7.5 billion annual savings
* Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20% — $600 million annual savings.
* Essential Air Service — $150 million annual savings.
* Technology Innovation Program — $70 million annual savings.
* Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program — $125 million annual savings.
* Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization — $530 million annual savings.
* Beach Replenishment — $95 million annual savings.
* New Starts Transit — $2 billion annual savings.
* Exchange Programs for Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical Trading Partners in Massachusetts — $9 million annual savings
* Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants — $2.5 billion annual savings.
* Title X Family Planning — $318 million annual savings.
* Appalachian Regional Commission — $76 million annual savings.
* Economic Development Administration — $293 million annual savings.
* Programs under the National and Community Services Act — $1.15 billion annual savings.
* Applied Research at Department of Energy — $1.27 billion annual savings.
* Freedom CAR and Fuel Partnership — $200 million annual savings.
* Energy Star Program — $52 million annual savings.
* Economic Assistance to Egypt — $250 million annually.
* U.S. Agency for International Development — $1.39 billion annual savings.
* General Assistance to District of Columbia — $210 million annual savings.
* Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority — $150 million annual savings.
* Presidential Campaign Fund — $775 million savings over ten years.
* No funding for federal office space acquisition — $864 million annual savings.
* End prohibitions on competitive sourcing of government services.
* Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act — More than $1 billion annually.
* IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for some services it offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing it to remain as part of its budget — $1.8 billion savings over ten years.
* Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees — $1 billion total savings. WHAT THE HELL IS THISABOUT?
* Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees — $1.2 billion savings over ten years.
* Sell excess federal properties the government does not make use of — $15 billion total savings.
* Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress.
* Eliminate Mohair Subsidies — $1 million annual savings.
* Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — $12.5 million annual savings WELL ISN’T THAT SPECIAL
* Eliminate Market Access Program — $200 million annual savings.
* USDA Sugar Program — $14 million annual savings.
* Subsidy to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) — $93 million annual savings.
* Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program — $56.2 million annual savings.
* Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs — $900 million savings.
* Ready to Learn TV Program — $27 million savings.. WHY?????
* HUD Ph.D. Program.
* Deficit Reduction Check-Off Act.
* TOTAL SAVINGS: $2.5 Trillion over Ten Years
More energy price hikes and power shortages on the way due to government regulation
Government picking winners and losers and getting kickbacks in what has become “Greenscam”, an effort to funnel tax dollars into far left eco-extremists groups and the Democratic Party – LINK.
Read carefully – Marita Noon:
“Once real numbers have come out about renewable energy costs, people are having second thoughts,” reported Maureen Masten, Deputy Secretary of Natural Resources and Senior Advisor on Energy to Governor Bob McDonnell, VA, while addressing his “all of the above energy” strategy to meet the state’s energy needs.
The real costs of renewable energy are coming out—both in dollars and daily impacts. After years of hearing about “free” energy from the sun and wind, people are discovering that they’ve been lied to.
On Tuesday, August 14, the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) approved a new renewable energy rate rider that will allow the Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) to start recovering a portion of its recent development costs for building five solar facilities around the state, a pilot solar facility with battery storage, and wind resource procurements. The renewable rider could be on ratepayers’ bills by the end of the month—“depending on when the commission publishes its final order,” said PNM spokeswoman Susan Spooner.
The rate rider currently represents about a $1.34 increase for an average residence using 600 kilowatt hours of electricity per month—or a little more than $16 per year. This increase seems miniscule until you realize that this is only a small part of increases to come. PNM needs to recover $18.29 million in renewable expenditures in 2012 and the rate rider only addresses monies spent in the last four to five months. The remaining expense will be carried into 2013.
Like more than half of the states in the US, New Mexico has a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that mandates public utilities have set percentages of their electricity from renewable sources. In New Mexico the mandate is 10 percent this year, 15 percent by 2015 and 20 percent by 2020. Most states—with the exception of California (which is 33 percent by 2020)—have similar benchmarks. To meet the mandates, PNM will need considerably more renewable energy with dramatically more expense—all of which ultimately gets passed on to the customer. PNM acknowledges that the rider will increase next year and predicts the total cost recovery for 2013 to be about $23 million. By 2020, based on the current numbers of approximately $20 million a year invested, resulting in a $24 a year increase, consumers’ bills will go up about $200 a year just for the additional cost of inefficient renewable energy.
Had the PRC not approved the special rate rider, costs would be even higher. Typically rate increases are only approved at periodic rate case hearings, usually held every few years. The system of only allowing rate increases after a lengthy hearing, keeps the costs hidden from the consumer for longer but increases costs to the utility and, ultimately, the consumer, due to interest charges on the borrowed money. PNM believes the rider will allow for more “timely recovery of costs,” resulting in a $2.7 million savings.
Environmental groups, who’ve been pushing for the renewable energy increases, opposed the special renewable rate rider and have threatened a potential appeal of the PRC’s decision. It is hard to tout “free” energy when there is a special line on the utility bill that clearly points out the new charge for renewables.
So, renewable electricity is hardly free. It also isn’t there when you need it—like in the predictable summer heat of California.
To meet their 33 percent renewable mandate, California’s utility companies, like New Mexico, have been installing commercial renewable electricity facilities—with wind capable of providing about 6 percent, and solar 2 percent, of the state’s electric demand. But in the summer heat, the wind doesn’t blow much and the solar capacity drops by about 50 percent when the demand is the highest.
Despite increasing renewable capacity and an exodus of the population, California has been facing threats of rolling brown/blackouts due to potential shortages. TV and radio ads blanket the air waves begging consumers to limit electricity usage by setting their air conditioners at 78 degrees and using household appliances only after 6PM. “Flex Alerts” have been issued stating: “conservation remains critical.” “Consumers are urged to reduce energy use,” “California ISO balances high demand for electricity with tight power supplies” and “maintain grid reliability.”
Even with expedited permitting, California cannot build renewable electricity generation fast enough. Environmentalists block construction due to species habitat, such as that of the desert tortoise or the kit fox. If they oppose renewable energy construction, you can imagine the vitriol they extend toward coal, natural gas, and nuclear. There is a big push to shut down nuclear power plants and new natural-gas plants, which are ideal for meeting the needs of “peak demand,”are fought by the very same groups that are pushing electric cars.
San Diego-based, nationally syndicated radio talk show host Roger Hedgecock observed: “Right at the moment in California, building new electricity generating power plants of any kind is politically taboo. Electricity itself is becoming politically taboo.”
Texas has been faced with both increasing costs and fears of shortages. “Concerned about adequate electricity supplies,” the Texas Public Utility Commission recently voted to allow electricity generators to charge up to 50 percent more for wholesale power. The increase is to encourage the building of new power plants in the state with the highest capacity in the country for wind electricity generation.
Apparently new electricity-generating power plants are politically taboo in Texas, too—at least within the environmental community. Instead of encouraging new power plants to be built, Ken Kramer, the Texas head of the Sierra Club, said, “A better idea would be to encourage more energy-saving programs”—perhaps like setting the thermostat to 78 degrees and not turning on appliances until after 6PM.
When will Americans revolt over being forced to use less while paying more?
We know that high energy prices are just the beginning of inflation that raises the cost of everything from food to clothing to manufactured goods. When the cost of manufacturing goes up, industry moves to countries with lower-priced energy, cheaper labor, and more reasonable regulations. Jobs go overseas and we import more. The trade deficit grows, and America is less competitive.
The higher electricity costs are 100 percent due to government regulation and legislation that are unreasonably crushing American businesses and ratepayers—much like the pressure England imposed on the American colonies that launched the American Revolution.
Fact Check: Obama running against outdated version of Ryan Medicare plan
This is one of the big problems I have with the progressive secular left; if you read their heroes from Lenin, Walter Lippmann, almost anyone from the Frankfurt School, Antonio Gramsci, Max Weber, Saul Alinsky etc, they all advocate deception as a legitimate political tactic.
Leftism assumes that people cannot govern themselves and that freedom leaves too much to chance, and therefore the rabble must have rationality imposed upon them from above, preferably by incrementalism, but eventually by force if need be. All forms of leftism, from liberalism, progressivism, socialism, communism, marxism, critical theory, grievance studies are all favor movement towards a leviathan state ran by an oligarchy, some of the flavors wish to maintain the illusion of limited government and a genuine democratic process, some don’t.
The Obama campaign would like voters to believe that Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan would “end Medicare as we know it” — privatizing the whole system and costing seniors more than $6,000 extra a year.
But the campaign, even before Ryan was selected as Mitt Romney’s running mate, has effectively been running against the wrong Ryan plan.
The president’s accusations largely refer to Ryan’s 2011 plan, ignoring the fact that the House Budget Committee chairman rolled out a different version in 2012 — taking into account Democratic critiques. Though the 2012 plan is more moderate, Obama and his surrogates have all but ignored the newer version as they amp up their accusations against the Romney-Ryan ticket.
Most glaringly, the campaign has omitted a key point.
While Ryan’s 2011 plan proposes to give seniors a government payment to buy private insurance, his 2012 plan offers seniors a choice.
Under the blueprint, seniors could use the payment to buy private insurance or stay in traditional Medicare.
Paul Ryan Addresses The Villages With His Mother Better Douglas (video)
Mom, I am proud of you for going out, getting another degree. I’m proud of you for the small business that you created. And Mom — you did build that!! That’s what America is all about.
You know, my grandma moved in with us—with my mom and me—when I was in high school. She had advanced Alzheimer’s. My mom and I were her two primary caregivers. You learn a lot about life; you learn a lot about your elderly seniors in your family; you learn a lot about Alzheimer’s. Medicare was there for our family, for my grandma, when we needed it then; and Medicare is there for my mom while she needs it now, and we have to keep that guarantee.
Full Video:
Awesome: Mitt Romney Uses White Board To Explain Medicare to Press (video)
Because so many elite media journalists just can’t seem to get this passed their skulls.
Over 100 Million Now Receiving Federal Welfare
Related:
CIS: 57% of illegal immigrant households on welfare – LINK
Welfare grew by 19% under Obama! Total Obama Stimulus Bills $2.5 TRILLION – LINK
5.4 Million Join Disability Rolls Under Obama – LINK
Real GDP Tanked at 1.7%. Food Stamps and Welfare at Record Levels – LINK
Food Stamp Spending Doubled Since 2008. Welfare Spending Nearing $1 Trillion a Year – LINK
“The federal government administers nearly 80 different overlapping federal means-tested welfare programs,” the Senate Budget Committee notes. However, the committee states, the figures used in the chart do not include those who are only benefiting from Social Security and/or Medicare.
Food stamps and Medicaid make up a large–and growing–chunk of the more than 100 million recipients. “Among the major means tested welfare programs, since 2000 Medicaid has increased from 34 million people to 54 million in 2011 and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) from 17 million to 45 million in 2011,” says the Senate Budget Committee. “Spending on food stamps alone is projected to reach $800 billion over the next decade.”
The data come “from the U.S. Census’s Survey of Income and Program Participation shows that nearly 110,000 million individuals received a welfare benefit in 2011. (These figures do not include other means-tested benefits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit or the health insurance premium subsidies included in the President’s health care law. CBO estimates that the premium subsidies, scheduled to begin in 2014, will cover at least 25 million individuals by the end of the decade.)”
Conservative Leader Pays George Obama’s Medical Bills
President Obama said that he believes that we should be our brother’s keeper and yet his real life brother lives in a shanty hut.
Conservative intellectual Dinesh D’Souza went to interview George Obama who has written a book. George is insightful, thoughtful, humble and very intelligent. He also rejects the collectivist, anti-colonialist ideology of his father and his brother.
George Obama’s son was very sick and the hospital bill was $1,000 so D’Souza paid the bill for him. See the video of the George Obama interview at The Blaze and read D’Souza’s column about the story HERE.
Charles Koch: Why We Fight for Economic Freedom
In 1990, the year before the collapse of the Soviet Union, I attended an economic conference in Moscow.
Like my father during his visits to the U.S.S.R. in the early 1930s, I was astonished and appalled by what I saw.
Simple necessities, such as toilet paper, were in short supply. In fact, there was none at all in the airport bathroom stalls for fear it would be stolen. Visitors using the facilities had to request a portion of tissue from an attendant beforehand.
When I walked into one of Moscow’s giant department stores, there was next to nothing on the shelves. For those shoppers who were lucky enough to find something they actually wanted to buy, the purchase process was maddening and time-consuming.
Although the government provided universal healthcare, I never met anyone who wanted to stay in a Soviet hospital. Medical services might have been “free,” but the quality of care was notoriously poor.
Reality Check
My experiences in the Soviet Union underscore why economic freedom is so important for all of us.
Nations with the greatest degree of economic freedom tend to have citizens who are much better off in every way.
No centralized government, no matter how big, how smart or how powerful, can effectively and efficiently control much of society in a beneficial way. On the contrary, big governments are inherently inefficient and harmful.
And yet, the tendency of our own government here in the U.S. has been to grow bigger and bigger, controlling more and more. This is why America keeps dropping in the annual ranking of economic freedom.
Devil’s Bargain
Citizens who over-rely on their government to do everything not only become dependent on their government, they end up having to do whatever the government demands. In the meantime, their initiative and self-respect are destroyed.
It was President Franklin Roosevelt who said: “Continued dependence on [government support] induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.”
Businesses can become dependents, too. If your struggling car company wants a government bailout, you’ll probably have to build the government’s car – even if it’s a car very few people want to buy.
Repeatedly asking for government help undermines the foundations of society by destroying initiative and responsibility. It is also a fatal blow to efficiency and corrupts the political process.
When everyone gets something for nothing, soon no one will have anything, because no one will be producing anything.
Cronyism
Under the Soviet system, special traffic lanes were set aside for the sole use of officials in their limousines. This worsened driving conditions for everyone else, but those receiving favored treatment didn’t care.
Today, many governments give special treatment to a favored few businesses that eagerly accept those favors. This is the essence of cronyism.
Many businesses with unpopular products or inefficient production find it much easier to curry the favor of a few influential politicians or a government agency than to compete in the open market.
After all, the government can literally guarantee customers and profitability by mandating the use of certain products, subsidizing production or providing protection from more efficient competitors.
Cronyism enables favored companies to reap huge financial rewards, leaving the rest of us – customers and competitors alike – worse off.
One obvious example of this involves wind farms. Most cannot turn a profit without the costly subsidies the government provides. Meanwhile, consumers and taxpayers are forced to pay an average of five times more for wind-generated electricity.
We see far too many legislative proposals that would subsidize one form of energy over another, penalize certain emissions from one industry but not another, or place protective tariffs that hurt consumers.
Legacies
Karl Marx famously said: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”
The result of this approach is not equality, but rather a lowering of everyone’s standards to some minimal level.
Some people worry about the disparity of wealth in a system of economic freedom. What they don’t realize is that the same disparity exists in the least-free countries.
The difference is who is better off.
Under economic freedom, it is the people who do the best job of producing products and services that make people’s lives better.
On the other hand, in a system without economic freedom, the wealthiest are the tyrants who make people’s lives miserable.
As a result of this, the income of the poorest in the least-free countries is one-tenth of what it is in the freest.
Elected officials are often asked what they would like as their legacy. I’m never going to run for office, but I can tell you how I would answer that question.
I want my legacy to be greater freedom, greater prosperity and a better way of life for my family, our employees and all Americans. And I wish the same for every nation on earth.
Charles Koch is the Chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, Inc.
Obama Attorney General Eric Holder: Brainwash People to Surrender Second Amendment (video)
From a speech Eric Holder made in 1995:
Four Stages of Islamic Conquest (video)
I have seen this outlined in a lecture from Brigitte Gabrielle who watched this exact same method used to conquer Lebanon with the help of secular leftists who the Islamists later slaughtered.
Brigitte Gabrielle interview:
AWESOME: What the Ronald Reagan 2012 National Address Would Be (video)
What the Ronald Reagan 2012 National Address Would Be. We miss you Dutch.
McDonald’s: ObamaCare will cost us $420,000,000 per year in new costs…
So much for that McChicken only costing a dollar….
Papa John: I must raise pizza prices if ‘Obamacare’ survives – LINK
Cook Medical Scraps Plans to Expand Production in USA Because of ObamaCare Tax: Looking to Go Overseas – LINK
The Affordable Care Act could cost McDonald’s and its franchisees more than $400 million a year in additional health-care expenses, Chief Financial Officer Peter Bensen said on Monday.
McDonald’s estimates that each restaurant will incur between $10,000 and $30,000 in added annual costs, Bensen said in response to an analyst’s question on a conference call to discuss the fast-food giant’s second-quarter results, according to an unedited transcript of the call provided by FactSet. There are about 14,000 McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S., meaning McDonald’s expects the total cost to the company and its franchisees to be in the range of $140 million to $420 million. McDonald’s owns about 11% of its U.S. restaurants, while the rest are franchised.
Bensen added that the wide range is due to a number of variables, including the number of employees per restaurant and how many are full-time workers. Spokeswomen for McDonald’s added that the final cost will also depend on what percentage of its eligible employees elect to accept health insurance from the chain, as well as any changes McDonald’s might make to its health-care plan. McDonald’s worked with its franchisees to analyze and estimate the potential costs, the spokeswomen said, which could be mitigated by higher menu prices.
Companies have moved ahead with planning for economic and other consequences of the law since a Supreme Court ruling last month upheld the vast majority of President Barack Obama’s controversial health-care law, even as congressional Republicans and that party’s presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, vow to overturn it.
“Now that the Supreme Court has ruled,” Bensen said, “[we are] increasing our conversations and disclosures with franchisees” to educate them about the potential changes and how to minimize their impact.
To put the cost per restaurant into perspective, Bensen noted on the call that the commodity-costs increases it experienced in 2011, for example, added more than $30,000 in overhead to each restaurant that year.
Papa John: I must raise pizza prices if ‘Obamacare’ survives
Cook Medical Scraps Plans to Expand Production in USA Because of ObamaCare Tax: Looking to Go Overseas – LINK
McDonald’s: ObamaCare will cost us $420,000,000 per year – LINK
Get ready to pay more for your Papa John’s pizza if “Obamacare” goes into full effect … a whopping 15 to 20 cents more.
John Schnatter, chief executive of the pizza chain, is bashing President Obama’s healthcare reform law as a policy that will force the company to choose between its customers and its investors.
And if the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act rolls out as planned in 2014, Schnatter’s strategy is “of course … to pass that cost on the consumer in order to protect our shareholders’ best interest,” he said in a recent conference call.
Schnatter estimates that the legislation will cost Papa John’s about 11 cents to 14 cents per pizza, which equates to 15 cents to 20 cents per order. An average delivery charge runs $1.75 to $2.50.
The National Restaurant Assn. has criticized the healthcare legislation for having a chilling effect on expansion and hiring in the industry, which tends to be labor-intensive and burdened with thin margins.
Chains such as White Castle and Burger King have predicted surging costs due to the new regulations, which require businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to offer healthcare to such workers and their dependents.
And ObamaCare is designed to make the cost of that insurance rise dramatically.
Cook Medical Scraps Plans to Expand Production in USA Because of ObamaCare Tax: Looking to Go Overseas
When it comes to jobs Obama has proven to be the great destroyer.
Papa John: I must raise pizza prices if ‘Obamacare’ survives – LINK
McDonald’s: ObamaCare will cost us $420,000,000 per year in new costs – LINK
An Indiana company’s decision to scrap expansion plans due to a looming tax on medical devices has renewed pressure on the Senate to consider a House-passed bill repealing the tax.
House Speaker John Boehner, in a written statement, urged the Senate to take up the bill “as soon as possible.”
Companies in the medical device industry for months have been calling on Congress to strip the provision. Amid the complaints, though, several firms have already taken steps to cut back U.S. investment out of concern for the tax’s impact.
Cook Medical, an Indiana-based medical equipment manufacturer, last week said it’s nixing plans to open five new plants in the next five years — claiming the tax will cost between $15 million and $30 million a year, cutting into money that would otherwise go toward expanding into new facilities in the Midwest.
“Unfortunately, we have had to shelve these expansion plans and look overseas for that,” Allison Giles, vice president for federal affairs with the company, told FoxNews.com. “It’s a huge amount for us.”
She urged the Senate to take up the repeal bill, even if it has to wait for the post-election lame-duck session.
“We’re hoping that members will look at this, not so much as a health care provision, but as a jobs provision,” she said.
The Affordable Care Act imposed the 2.3 percent tax on medical devices beginning in 2013. It is projected to raise nearly $30 billion over the next decade — the House voted to repeal it last month.
The Obama administration argues that claims the tax will shift jobs overseas are overblown.
Star Parker Calls Out Tavis Smiley and Cornel West to Debate Race and Poverty (video)
Star Parker Calls Out Tavis Smiley and Cornel West to Debate Race and Poverty. “Secular socialism vs Freedom” as Parker puts it.
National Counterterrorism Center: Sunni Muslim terrorists responsible for nearly 70% of terror-related deaths
According to a report by the US Government’s National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Sunni Muslim terrorists were responsible for nearly 70 percent of the world’s 12,533 terror-related deaths during 2011.
According to NCTC’s 2011 Report on Terrorism, “Sunni extremists accounted for the greatest number of terrorist attacks and fatalities for the third consecutive year.”
Not only did the Sunni jihadists account for the lion’s share of deaths, they also were responsible for 56 percent of all the world’s 5,700 terror attacks.
Classified by the NCTC as Sunni extremists, Al-Qaida and its affiliates were “responsible for at least 688 attacks that resulted in almost 2,000 deaths,” the report stated.
Also lumped into the NCTC’s definition of Sunni extremists, the Taliban of both Afghanistan and Pakistan, “conducted over 800 attacks that resulted in nearly 1,900 deaths.”
The report also cited the second largest category of terrorists during 2011 were “secular, political, and anarchist groups,” which were primarily identified as Marxists, Communists and their sympathizers.
The Marxists and Communists were responsible for “conducting 2,283 attacks with 1,926 fatalities, a drop of 5 percent and 9 percent, respectively, from 2010,” according to the NCTC report.
CBO: Obama Wrong About Wealthy Paying Less
Since the Bush tax cuts “the rich” have been paying a larger share of the federal tax pie, but that pie has been shrinking as more wealth flees the country, more of the wealthy expatriate, more jobs leave the country, and more people drop out of the workforce.
[Editor’s Note – The raw CBO report can be found HERE]
President Barack Obama says someone has to pay more taxes if the U.S. is to tame its budget deficit and provide the government he thinks the nation needs. He proposes that the best-off Americans pay more. It’s only fair, he says.
“There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me because they want to give something back,” he said in a speech in Roanoke, Va., that set off dueling campaign ads. “Look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.”
His Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, counters that the deficit can be reduced without raising taxes if Washington is tough on spending. He thinks raising taxes on the best-off would be unwise and unfair. “President Obama attacks success, and therefore under President Obama we have less success,” he said.
The contrasting comments underscore philosophical differences over the roles of the individual and society. But the most tangible disagreement is on taxing the rich.
“Who’s right: Obama or Romney? Both. Or neither,” says Joseph Thorndike, a tax historian. “When it comes to taxing the rich, there is no single, objectively correct answer. You can talk all you want about asking rich people to pay ‘their fair’ share,’ but don’t kid yourself. You’re just trying to turn private opinions into public policy.”
“I’m struck” he adds, “how the facts can be used selectively by either side.”
Academic tomes have been written about revamping the tax code so it finances the government while doing less damage to economic growth. But, countless congressional hearings later, the U.S. is no closer to a consensus on “fair share” than when the income tax was born 100 years ago.
The top marginal income-tax rate, the most visible metric, has gone from 7% in 1913 to 92% in the 1950s to 28% with the Tax Reform Act of 1986 to 39.6% in the Clinton years to today’s 35%. Mr. Obama wants to raise that; Mr. Romney wants to cut it while eliminating loopholes and deductions to make up the lost revenue.
Over the past three decades, Americans—including most of the rich—have paid less of their incomes to Washington. Top earners have received more of the income and paid more of the taxes; a growing number at the bottom have paid less or, in some cases, nothing.
Whether that is fair is a question of politics and values. Facts can inform the debate. Here are a few salient ones:
The top 5%, top 1% and top 0.1% of Americans have been getting a bigger slice of all the income and paying a growing share of federal taxes.
To measure the tax burden over time, Congressional Budget Office economists look beyond income-tax returns. They add federal income, payroll, excise and corporate taxes and calculate them as a percentage of income, broadly defined to include wages plus the value of government- and employer-provided benefits.
From Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, the tax code has been tweaked and the economy has had its ups and downs, and the share of federal taxes paid by the top 5% and the top 1% has risen faster than their share of income:
In the 1980s, the top 5% averaged 22.6% of income and paid 28.5% of taxes.
In the 1990s, the top 5% averaged 25.3% of income and paid 34.3% of taxes
In the 2000s, the top 5% averaged 28.4% of the income and paid 40.3% of the taxes.
That doesn’t mean that the best-off are living on less. The top 1% averaged income of $1,530,773 this year (up $174,083 from 2004, when the data series begins) and paid federal taxes of all sorts of $422,915 (up $20,704 from 2004), according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center, a number-crunching joint venture of the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute.
Average tax rates have come down for everyone. On average, the tax bite on the rich is bigger—except for those whose income mainly comes from capital gains and dividends.
Across the earnings spectrum, Americans’ share of income that went to taxes fell in the 1980s, rose in the 1990s and fell again in the 2000s. This year, taxes and other receipts will cover only two-thirds of federal spending; the government will borrow the rest.
For those in the top 1%, whose incomes are more volatile than others, the average tax bite in 2007 was 28.9%, below the 1995 Clinton-era peak (35.3%) but higher than the 1986 Reagan-era trough (24.6%.)
Most Americans, though, have seen the share of their income that goes to taxes fall steadily. For earners in the middle, the tax bite eased from 18.9% in 1979 to 16.6% in 1999 to 14% in 2007 even before the recession and recession-fighting tax cuts.
The rich do, on average, pay more of their income in taxes than the middle class. So do the super-rich—on average.
The annual Internal Revenue Service scorecard of the top 400 taxpayers—who reported average incomes of $200 million—showed they paid 19.9% of their adjusted gross income in federal income taxes in 2009, well above the rate paid by the middle class. Those with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000, for instance, paid about 12%. (The IRS tally for the top 400 counts only income reported on tax returns, and only income taxes. Neither the IRS nor CBO calculates figures for the 1% using the broader definitions of income and taxes.)
The fortunate 400, though, paid a lower rate than the not-quite-so-rich, those with incomes over $1.5 million. The main reason: More than 60% of the top 400’s income was from dividends or capital gains in 2009, and those are taxed at a top rate of 15%, lower than many pay on wages.
The share of taxes paid by the bottom 40% of the population has been shrinking along with their share of income.
In 2007, the bottom 40% received 14.9% of the income (including the value of government benefits) and paid 5.9% of all federal taxes. In 1979, they had a bigger share (17.4%) of the income and paid more (9.5%) of the taxes.
Prager University Video: The Moral Superiority of Free Markets and Happiness
With Arthur Brooks:
Prager University Video: Proving Media Bias
Prof. Tim Grosclose shows how media bias works and has come up with a peer reviewed way to measure it.
Shooting at Family Research Council – Gunman Shouted Comments About FRC’s Conservative Politics – Elite Media Mum – UPDATED!!
[Editor’s Note – Let us be clear on this, it seems the shooter wanted to kill people at the FRC because they are Christians.]
As of 12:40 PM Fox News is the only television network reporting the story on the air. Radicalized leftists targeted the Family Research Council because the CEO of Chick-Fil-A gave them a donation [And nothing on the network news other than Fox. UPDATE – Nothing on MSN’s homepage news-feed.]
UPDATE – Shooter carried a Chick-Fil-A bag – LINK. Shooter said to guard, “Don’t shoot me, it was not about you, it was what this place stands for.”
UPDATE II – Shooter is an LGBT activist:
The suspect in Wednesday’s shooting at the Washington, D.C. office of the Family Research Council has been identified as Floyd Corkins, 28, of Herndon, Virginia. David Mariner, executive director of The DC Center for the LGBT Community, said Corkins has worked as a volunteer at the center for about the past 6 months, Newser reported.
A security guard at the Family Research Council headquarters in Washington, D.C., was shot in the arm by a gunman who sources said expressed disagreement with the conservative group’s policy positions.
The guard, who was not identified, was conscious after the shooting and was being treated. The shooting occurred in the Chinatown neighborhood Wednesday morning. The gunman was apprehended and was being questioned by the FBI, sources said. Sources said he is in his twenties and may have been posing as an intern.
The suspect “made statements regarding their policies, and then opened fire with a gun striking a security guard,” a source told Fox News.
Authorities were treating the attack as a case of domestic terrorism.
As of now the Washington Post, Huffington Post, ABC local, and Politico are reporting the shooting online, but are omitting that the shooter shouted comments against the Christian lobbying group. Anyone surprised?
UPDATE III – FRC President Tony Perkins: SPLC Is Responsible for Creating Environment That Led to Shooting
Paul Ryan Video: Saving Medicare and the Path to Prosperity, Visualized
Watch and learn. Three short videos.
Full script of “Paul Ryan, Saving Medicare, Visualized” can be found at: http://budget.house.gov/fy2012budget/medicare.htm
Paul Ryan Reminds Debbie Wasserman-Schultz What She’s Already Done to Medicare (video)
Paul Ryan Reminds Debbie Wasserman-Schultz What She’s Already Done to Medicare
Romney to Obama: Take your campaign of hate and division back to Chicago…(video)
Romney to Obama: Take your campaign of hate and division back to Chicago…
2,362 Millionaires Received Unemployment Benefits
When “government” is the answer all to often it was a stupid question. Case in point this idiotic federal mandate:
There were 2,362 people who earned a million dollars or more in taxable income in 2009 and who also received federal unemployment benefits that year, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.
In fact, these millionaires collectively raked in more than $20 million in unemployment benefits.
The Congressional Research Service report–Receipt of Unemployment Insurance by Higher-Income Unemployed Workers (“Millionaires”)—was published on Aug. 2 and was based on the most recent data available from the Internal Revenue Service.
“Among tax filers with AGI [Adjusted Gross Income] of $1 million or more, 2,840 reported receipt of unemployment benefit income in 2008 and 2,362 tax filers reported receipt of unemployment benefit income in 2009,” the CRS reported.
The CRS reported that millionaires received $20.8 million in federal unemployment benefits in 2009, up from $18.6 million in 2008. That averages out to $8,806 in unemployment benefits per millionaire.
Unemployment insurance is a joint federal-state program and is funded by a payroll tax assessed against all workers. In the four years preceding 2012, according to the Tax Foundation, the unemployment insurance system was in the red. “Between 2008 and 2011, $174 billion was paid in unemployment taxes while $450 billion was paid out in benefits, a gap of $276 billion,” the Tax Foundation said.
Department of Labor regulations require that unemployment benefits must be paid to all unemployed workers regardless of their income.
“This requirement is based upon a 1964 U.S. Department of Laobr (DOL) decision that precludes states from means-testing to determine UC [unemployment compensation] eligibility,” the CRS said in its report.
Biden to Black Americans: Romney gonna put y’all back in chains!
Wow, talk about unhinged. And of course Andrea Saul can’t think of anything imaginative to respond with.
If there is inner city violence come election day, Democrats should blame Biden as his rhetoric is nothing short of unhinged incitement.
Ben Shapiro at Breitbart News:
This morning in Virginia, Vice President Joe Biden dropped some shocking and offensive language in ripping into Mitt Romney’s economic plans. Stooping to a new low, Biden said, “Romney wants to let the—he said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules–unchain Wall Street. They gonna put y’all back in chains.”
The southern accent Biden adopts for that last line is deeply disturbing; it’s a clear reference to slavery. The city of Danville, where Biden was speaking, has a black population of 48.6 percent; 19.8 percent of all Virginians are black. Those facts surely did not go unnoticed by Biden. This is race-baiting as its finest. It is despicable.
The Romney campaign responded immediately, demanding an apology from the Obama campaign. “After weeks of slanderous and baseless accusations leveled against Governor Romney, the Obama Campaign has reached a new low,” said Andrea Saul, Romney’s campaign spokeswoman, in a statement. “The comments made by the Vice President of the United States are not acceptable in our political discourse and demonstrate yet again that the Obama Campaign will say and do anything to win this election. President Obama should tell the American people whether he agrees with Joe Biden’s comments.”
Thus far, such tactics have not worked on the Obama campaign, which seemingly has no shame; last week, they allowed an associated Super PAC to attack Romney as the passive murderer of Joe Soptic’s wife, and refused to condemn such action. With the Obama campaign becoming more and more desperate, their language is becoming more and more extreme. Paul Ryan’s selection as Mitt Romney’s VP pick seems to be shaking up the Democrats’ strategy – and their fallback position appears to be vulgarity and political slander.
Political Arena 